Sentimental Tales

by Mikhail Zoshchenko

  He began to grieve in the open, to sink into thought, and to curse his life.

  “No, life just hasn’t panned out,” our Volodin would mutter, trying to grasp what mistake he had made in his life and his plans.

  6

  But in the spring—if memory hasn’t betrayed us—of 1925, major events took place in the life of our friend, Nikolay Petrovich Volodin. While courting a sweet little maiden, he fell passionately in love with her—or, to put it plainly, went ass over teakettle—and even began to consider making a radical change in his life. He was now earning a decent salary and could contemplate a new, happier life.

  He found this young lass altogether pleasant and charming. In a word, she suited his spiritual needs to a T, possessing precisely the physical appearance of which he had dreamed all his life. She was a slender, poetic individual, with dark hair and eyes that shone like stars. But it was her tiny, small little whiskers that filled Volodin with particular delight and made him ponder his situation more seriously.

  However, various family circumstances and dark forebodings of loud scandals, and perhaps even face-poundings, forced him to cool his passions and banish his thoughts.

  Just in case, he began to treat his wife even more affably. Whenever he left the house, he’d give her a cock and bull story about needing to rush off to some friend or other, and, patting her on the back, would pronounce various affable and inoffensive words.

  And Madame Volodin, knowing full well that something of extraordinary importance was taking place, would blink dumbly, unsure of what to do: should she scream and raise hell, or bide her time, gathering incriminating material and evidence?

  Volodin would leave the house, meet with his little moppet, and lead her grandly through the streets, brimming with witty phrases, inspiration, and boisterous, seething life.

  The maiden would hang on his arm, chattering about her innocent little affairs. She would say that while many married gentlemen might entertain all sorts of unrealizable fantasies, she, in spite of the total debauchery all around her, had a completely different take on things. Only serious circumstances could incline her to more specific facts. Of course, an excessively strong sense of love might also loosen her principles. Sensing that these words contained an amorous confession, Volodin would drag his lady around with particular energy, muttering various irresponsible thoughts and wishes.

  Each evening they would depart for the lake, and there, on the high bank, on a bench, or simply on the grass beneath the lilacs, they would embrace tenderly, experiencing every second of their happiness to the fullest.

  It was the month of May, and this wonderful time of year—with its beauty, fresh colors, and light, intoxicating air—inspired them to no end.

  The author, unfortunately, lacks major poetic gifts and finds it difficult to wield poetic vocabulary. It truly pains him that he has little aptitude for artistic description and, in general, for literary prose.

  If he did, the author would create majestic depictions, describing the fresh feelings of two loving hearts against the marvelous background of a springtime landscape, our natural resources, and fragrant lilacs.

  The author admits that he has tried many times over to penetrate the secret of artistic description, that secret which our modern literary giants employ with such enviable ease.

  However, the pallor of the author’s words and the wishy-washiness of his thoughts have prevented him from delving too deeply into the virginal thicket of Russian literary prose.

  But in describing the magical scenes of our friends’ assignations, full as they were of poetic trembling and melancholy, the author still cannot resist the temptation to plunge into the sweet, forbidden waters of artistic artistry.

  And so the author will lovingly dedicate to our lovers a few lines describing the nighttime panorama.

  The author begs experienced artists of the word not to judge his modest exercises too sternly. His is no easy task. It’s grueling labor.

  And yet the author will still try to plunge into high literary art.

  The sea was gurbling…All of a sudden, the air was filled with quirling, twirring, slarping. This was the sound of the young man unharnessing his shoulders and harnessing his hand in his side pocket.

  The world contained a bench. Suddenly a cigarette entered the picture. This was the young man lighting up and gazing lovingly at his maiden.

  The sea was gurbling…The grass susurrated ceaselessly. Loam and clay crumbled marvelously beneath the lovers’ feet.

  The maiden glibbed glintily and squintily, nosing the lilacs.4 Then the air was again filled with artistic quirling, twirring, slarping. And with its wondrous, indescribable brilliance a spectral analysis suddenly illuminated a hilly terrain…

  Ah, to hell with it! It won’t come out right. The author has the courage to admit that he has no talent for so-called artistic literature. To each his own. The lord god gives one fellow a simple, rough tongue, while another fellow’s tongue can turn out all sorts of subtle artistic ritornellos every minute.

  But the author never did set his sights on high artistry, and so he turns his rough-hewn tongue back to a description of events.

  In short, without encroaching on the art of rhetoric, we’ll say that our lovers sat above the lake, holding lengthy and endless conversations about love. From time to time they would sigh, fall silent, and listen to the sea gurble and the vegetation susurrate.

  The author is always very shocked to hear people speaking about objects without giving thought to their nature and causes.

  Many of our eminent writers, and even our strong satirists, usually write the following words, for example, with the greatest of ease: “The lovers sighed.”

  But what did they sigh for? How come? Why do lovers develop this definite habit of sighing?

  By gum, if you bear the title of writer, well, you’ve got to explain, elucidate these things for the inexperienced reader. Nothing doing. These writers, they just blurt things out and bid you farewell, moving on to the next topic with criminal negligence.

  The author, for his part, will try and stick his nose into this business, which doesn’t really concern him. According to the popular theory of a certain German dentist, a sigh is nothing more than a delay. That is, he says, what happens inside your organism, so to speak, is a kind of delay, in his words, some sort of inhibition of some forces or other, which are kept from following straight paths to their destinations, and what you get in the end is a sigh.5

  If someone sighs, well, that means they’ve been prevented from fulfilling their desires. And back in the bad old days, when love wasn’t especially accessible, lovers had plenty cause to sigh most cruelly. Come to think of it, they still may, from time to time.

  Such is the simple and glorious course of our life, and such are the modest, discreet, and heroic workings of our organisms.

  But this does not prevent the author from treating many excellent things and desires with love.

  And so, our young couple talked and sighed. But in the month of June, when the lilacs were already in bloom over the lake, they began to sigh less and less, and, at last, sighed no longer. Now they sat on the bench, leaning toward each other, happy and enraptured.

  The sea was gurbling…Loam and clay…

  Ah, to hell with it…

  During one of these glorious meetings of the heart, as Volodin sat beside the young lady and rattled off all sorts of poetic comparisons and rhymes, he dropped a rather beautiful phrase, which he had, no doubt, swiped from some anthology, though he insisted otherwise.

  Seriously, the author very much doubts that Volodin could have managed to formulate such a fanciful and poetic phrase, worthy of nothing else than the pen of a major literary master of the former era.

  As he leaned toward the young lady and the two of them sniffed a branch of lilac, he said: “Lilacs bloom for a week and then fade. As does your love.”

  The young lady froze in perfect delight, demanding that he repeat those marvelous, mus
ical words over and over again.

  And he repeated them all evening, mixing in a few verses by Pushkin—“A bird hopping on a branch”—Blok, and other responsible poets.6

  7

  Upon returning home after that sublime evening, Volodin was greeted with wild shouting, wailing, and harsh words.

  The whole Gopkis clan, together with the notorious brother of mercy Sypunov, pounced on Volodin and cursed him out for all he was worth, calling him a crook, a scoundrel, and a skirt-chaser.

  Brother of mercy Sypunov literally turned cartwheels around the apartment, hollering that he’d gladly bust a head for the sake of a weak woman, should an ungrateful creature such as Volodin go wandering at night with his tail up, destroying their harmonious family idyll.

  Meanwhile, Margarita, sensing impending trouble, squealed, shrill as a whistle. Through her whistling and moaning, she howled that such an ugly, cold-blooded beast should simply be kicked out of the house, and that only love—and, most importantly, her wasted youth—kept her from doing it.

  Volodin was struck in an especially unpleasant way by the roaring of the younger sister, Lola, who seemingly had nothing to gain from him. Her roaring only created a disturbing atmosphere and intensified the trouble to the level of a major family scandal.

  This crude and uncultured little scene stifled all of Volodin’s lofty thoughts. Having returned home overflowing with the most profound and elegant experiences, noble sentiments, and the smell of lilac, he now clutched at his head and silently cursed the rash step he had taken in marrying this unbridled old dame who was ruining his youth. Without raising his voice in response to the scandals and cries, he sent the whole family to hell and locked himself in his room. The next morning, at the crack of dawn, he quietly gathered his wardrobe and little odds and ends, preparing to depart.

  When the brother of mercy went off to work, Volodin took all his bundles and left the apartment, ignoring the lamentations and unceasing hysterical fainting fits of his better half.

  He came to his photographer, who received him with open arms and genuine joy, assuming that Volodin would now start retouching photographs if not for free, then at least on a more economical basis.

  Thrilled by his own deed, Volodin promised various friendly and unpaid services without thinking about his words. He burned with a single desire—to see his moppet as quickly as possible, so as to share with her the new and happy turn of events.

  And at two in the afternoon he met with her, as always, by the lake, near the chapel.

  Taking his moppet by the hand, he told her the whole tale excitedly, adorning his deed with all sorts of heroic details and minutiae. Yes, he had left his home, breaking those hateful bonds and giving the brother of mercy a good face-pounding.

  The news pleased the young lady to the utmost. She proclaimed that he was, at last, a free citizen and finally had the right to call his little chickadee his common-law wife.

  And how charming everything would be once they began to live together in the same apartment, under the same roof—with him slaving away like an elephant, without a moment’s rest, and her doing chores around the house, sewing, taking out the garbage, and so forth and so on.

  Volodin was unpleasantly struck, all of a sudden, by this excessively undisguised desire to have him for a husband, to saddle him, to make him bring home the bacon till the end of his days.

  He gazed at the young lady somewhat glumly and said that this was all well and good, but that they still needed to examine all these questions from every side, because he wasn’t used to situations where loved ones were made to suffer hardships and privations.

  He said it just like that, really, wanting to pull the young lady out of her material calculations and restore her to a more elevated state of mind. He was offended that the young lady would regard him in such practical, self-interested terms.

  Then, instantly recalling his own marriage and his calculating schemes, Volodin began to peer at the girl searchingly, wanting to penetrate her mind and heart, to find out whether she now entertained the same thoughts that he had entertained in his day.

  It appeared to Volodin that the girl’s eyes glowed with greedy calculation, the thought of profit, and the desire to secure her position as quickly as possible.

  “And besides, I just don’t have the money to get married now,” he said. He instantly considered his plan of action, deciding to pass himself off as poor and unemployed.

  “Yes,” he repeated more firmly, and even, so to speak, solemnly, “I don’t have the money, I have no money, and, unfortunately, I cannot provide for you with my work and income.”

  This, of course, wasn’t true; he lived well and was gainfully employed, but he wanted to hear lovely, selfless words from the girl’s lips—you know, we’ll get by somehow, who’s counting, and so on, who needs money when your heart’s full of feelings, or something like that.

  But Olya Sisyaeva, as if in spite, affected not so much by his protestations as by his tone, began to sniffle and mutter some uncomplicated words, which could most likely be taken for expressions of disappointment and frustrated dreams.

  “But how can that be?” she said at last. “Just the other day you spoke in a totally different manner and, on the contrary, made all sorts of plans, but now you say the opposite. How can that be?”

  “It’s very simple,” he said gruffly. “Dear friend, you know, I don’t run a government agency. My situation, you know, is too precarious and lonely. Right now, quite possibly, I’m almost out of work. I’m almost in need of a job. I myself don’t know how I’ll make ends meet down the line. Why, dear friend, I might be forced to walk the streets barefoot, begging for food.”

  The maiden stared at him with bulging glass eyes, trying with all her might to figure out what was happening.

  He, meanwhile, continued talking nonsense, bombarding his lady with images of poverty, discomfort, and a lifetime of deprivation.

  Later, before parting, they both tried to take the edge off this rough little scene. Strolling for ten minutes or so, they chatted about entirely unrelated and even poetic things. But their talk was strained. And so they parted—with her surprised and uncomprehending, and him more and more convinced of her subtle calculations and considerations.

  Returning to his bare reception room, Volodin lay down on the couch and tried to get to the bottom of the young lady’s feelings and desires. “Nicely done,” he thought. “Thought she had me on the hook! Bet my poverty talk gave her the shock of a lifetime…”

  Loves him, does she? He’d just see about that. Might be nothing more than calculation.

  And although he was less than fully and definitively convinced of her calculations, he still thought in these terms, wishing to hear, as quickly as possible, her words and assurances to the contrary. True love doesn’t end at the sight of poverty and misery. If she really did love him, she’d take his hand and tell him various words—something on the order of, you know, big deal, so what? Your poverty doesn’t scare me. We’ll work hard, striving for this or that.

  He lay on the couch, thinking these thoughts, seized by worry and indecision. Then, suddenly, someone rang at the door. It was brother of mercy Sypunov, who asked Volodin, in a harsh tone, to follow him to a neutral place, out into the yard, so that they could speak freely about all the deeds and actions that had recently occurred.

  Worrying and not daring to refuse, Volodin put on his hat and went down into the yard.

  The whole Gopkis clan was out there, talking animatedly and working itself up into a fine lather.

  Without wasting precious time and words, brother of mercy Sypunov approached Volodin and smashed him with a cobblestone that weighed, by all appearances, more than a pound.

  Volodin didn’t have time to draw back his head. He just jerked to the side and, in so doing, somewhat softened the blow. Grazing his hat, the cobblestone sliced his ear a bit, as well as the skin of his cheek.

  Covering his face with his hands, Volodin rushed back t
oward the house, pursued by another two or three stones launched by the vigorous hand of the defender of weak women. Volodin flew up the stairs in a jiff and quickly shut the door behind him.

  The brother of mercy raced after him and, spurred on by hooliganistic impulses, kicked at the door for a while, inviting Volodin to come out and continue their conversation more calmly, without face-pounding.

  Volodin stood behind the door with his hand over his wounded ear and held his breath. His heart pounded desperately. Fear had paralyzed his legs.

  After beating on the door a little while longer, the brother of mercy declared that if things went on this way, the whole family would pounce on the scoundrel and splash him with sulfuric acid. Unless, of course, he changed his mind and returned to fulfill his responsibilities.

  Battered and shaken, Volodin lay on the couch, thinking that everything had collapsed and gone to ruin.

  There was no comfort to be found. Even his love was now in doubt. His affection had been deceived and insulted by crude calculations and considerations.

  But then, after thinking it over, Volodin again began to question whether this was really the case.

  Well, if it wasn’t the case, then he’d go to her straightaway and make sure.

  Yes, he would go and tell her everything. He would say that life was coming to a head, that he was pursuing his ideals at great peril to his physical well-being, but, at the same time, she needed to know, once and for all, that he literally had nothing to his name. He was as good as a beggar, starving and out of work. If she wanted to, she could take the risk of marrying such a fellow. And if she didn’t, well, they’d shake hands and go their separate ways, like ships at sea.

  He wanted to run to her that very minute and utter the foregoing words, but it was already rather late. He removed his bloodstained jacket, rinsed his torn ear under the tap, wrapped a towel around his head, and lay down to sleep.